Health officials to bars: No more theatrics

State health officials are trying to pull the curtain down on bar owners who are staging "theater nights" to get around the state smoking ban.

Health Department officials issued an ultimatum on Wednesday: The bar owners are violating the state's smoking ban and will be fined if they don't stop. Hanging up a playbill and dubbing bar patrons actors doesn't constitute a theatrical production, which is exempted from the smoking ban, state officials said.

But bar owners who have embraced the theater nights as a way to lure back customers driven away by the ban vowed to continue the "performances," and it's not clear who will stop them.

State health officials said they will work with local health agencies to bring the bars into compliance. But some local health officials said they will leave it up to the state to enforce the law.

The issue may go to court, said Rob Fulton, director of St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health.

Fulton said his department employees don't initiate visits to bars but have responded to a couple of complaints about "theater nights." "We pick up a copy of the script and the playbill and then we pass it on" to the Minnesota Department of Health, Fulton said.

"On the face of it, it's utterly ridiculous to think you can invite a whole bunch of people to a bar and call it a theater,'' he said.

But attorney Mark Benjamin said that more than 100 bars have adopted "theater nights" to rave reviews from smokers.

"Not a single ticket has been issued,'' he said.

And Benjamin is betting that any citation that does get written will be thrown out.

"I think they thought this whole thing was going to go away. That it was a big joke,'' he said.

Sheila Kromer, whose Barnacles Resort and Campground in Aitkin hosted the first smoke show in the state last month, said Wednesday that she will continue them every Friday and Saturday night, even at the risk of getting a ticket and fine.

"I'll have to go to court and fight it," she said. "At this point, what do I have to lose? My business was going under and this theater night revived it."

Kromer said a state health officials called weeks ago to warn her that she was violating the law. "But I've done this for four weekends and no one has come out.''

Benjamin, Kromer and other bar owners say they hope the rise of "theater nights" will spur a legislative compromise to allow smoking under certain conditions in bars, offering a lifeline to businesses at risk of going under.

"My fight is with the Legislature,'' Benjamin said. "We need to have a real conversation about what is public health. Is it just about clean air and pink lungs? ... It's about economic and social health ... When you're financially stressed and your family business is going under, that's definitely going to affect your health."

But Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL-Mankato, one of the ban's leading proponents, said Wednesday that many of those changes were debated and rejected last year and she has no intention of "weakening" the ban. "The law doesn't need to be clarified,'' she said.

"These bars are attempting to circumvent the Freedom to Breathe Act," state Health Commissioner Sanne Magnan said Wednesday. "The law was enacted to protect Minnesotans from the serious health effects of secondhand smoke. We expect all establishments to comply with the law."

Sanne said the theatrical exemption was never intended to fill up a whole public room with smokers. And the state can fine violators up to $10,000, she said.

Sanne said her department issued its statement on Wednesday to make it clear that "theater nights" in bars aren't going to be tolerated. "We hope they will comply with the law,'' she said.

Jeanne Weigum, executive director of the Association for Nonsmokers, applauded the Department of Health's announcement on Wednesday, contending that the research shows there's no sustained economic decline from smoking bans, she said.

"Sure, there are some businesses that will close,'' she said. "And there are others that will open up."

But Lisa Anderson, owner of Mike's Uptown bar in Hill City, doesn't want to be one of the business that closes. She said her business plummeted when the smoking ban went into effect. "I had to cash in my life insurance and remortgage my house in trying to keep the business going."

But business quadruples every week when she stages a smoking production.

"I'm not trying to offend anyone,'' Anderson said. "I'm a single mom with two daughters. I'm just trying to live."

Mary Lynn Smith • 612-673-4788